Progress Report...x

Progress
Script	Completed by Suhur.	First a plan was created on how to approach this subject and we came up with the concept of using humour and seriousness within the actual script.
Storyboard	Completed by Natasha and Suhur (20 shots each)	After many discussions; we decided on 3 different concepts that we were going to use within the actual production. Natasha had begun by doing the first 20 shots with the use of split screen and Suhur had carried on from that used the concept of switching audiences perceptions by using famous shots within film.
Research	Completed by Yasmin	Yasmin had researched a particular institution that specialises in helping ethnic minorities succeed within society and the media.

Research into the genre

Research into the genre

Within our particular genre we have found that the use of urban grime music is used to exemplify the area in which the youths live within. This genre is particularly used within knife crime adverts and films such as Adulthood and Kidulthood. However, we think it is most suitable for our adverts within the first few shots where we aim to manipulate audience’s perceptions of youths and change their stereotypical view of black youths. However, we still aim to follow the conventions of the genre so that audiences are familiar. As we aim for an audience of A/B to change their perceptions and an audience of D,E to influence them about the change so they can identify with the issues we will use our soap opera genre to successfully convey a production that reflects the zeitgeist. The first few shots after watching many knife crime adverts; we aim to use high angle shots and high key lighting as within usual youth adverts there are a low key lighting which does not challenge the stereotype- conventions in which we aim to follow.

Action Plan

Name	Action	What we need to do to make this happen?	Soon? Now? Later?	What evidence indicates this progress?
Natasha, Suhur & Yasmin	Decide on location	Research on the internet and visit places	Now	Progress report
Natasha	Audition potential cast	Advertise the audition process within school and external areas	Now	Progress report
Suhur	Responsible for gathering the props.	Visit clothing shops and retailers	Now	Progress report
Yasmin	Gather equipment in place to film	Visit Mr Babu and rent out the equipment	Soon	Progress report
Natasha	Create posters to advertise our production to gain an audience	Use the software Photoshop	Soon	Progress report
Suhur	Create a script for the cast	Research on what makes a good script and use the structure of a professional screenplay	Soon	Progress report
Yasmin	Create the first 10shots on a story board	We all talk through our vision and decide the order of events and insure that we all use the correct and appropriate media language	Soon	Progress report
Suhur	Create the next 10 shots on the story board	We all talk through our vision and decide the order of events and insure that we all use the correct and appropriate media language	Soon	Progress report
Natasha	Create the final 10 shots on the story	We all talk through our vision and decide the order of events and insure that we all use the correct and appropriate media language	Soon	Progress report
Yasmin	As the director she films the first scenes	Position ourselves into the correct location with actors in place ready to film.	Soon	Progress report

Linked Production Pitch

View more presentations from guest2b9754.

Self Evaluation

As a group our presentation went well in terms of structure and simplicity, however the content did give our fellow class members an idea on what we will produce there was also some down sides to our presentation. Nevertheless, gaining feedback helped our group to produce our final production piece as sophisticated as possible.


WWW:
-Simplistic
-Good use of technology
-Current Explanation Explained
-Some example offered.
-Media Terminology 'dominant representation, subordinate'
-Good Presentation Style
-Theories 'active audience'
- Hypodermic needle challenged.

EBI:
- Use other key words e.g. stereotype, subvert moral panics
- Explain how irony will be used
- research educational acheievment of black youths
- Consider using contrapuntal sound.

1

This advert plays on many stereotypes, the use of propps such as knifes and the Mise-en- scene , which has many typical conventions of grime and dirt. This advert helps us as a group because it acts as a guidline in which we do not stp out of and we continuously change the view on black youths as transitionning from 'bad' to 'good'.

2

This particular video takes a more realist perspective and uses an example to shock the audience. The fact that the main character in this knife crime advert is black reinforces the stereotype; something which we hope to change and challenge. Moreover, this advert helps us as a group to decide which angle to look at through our production; do we take a realist approach and try to reflect the zeitgeist and highight the problem? Or do we (as a group) completely ignore this and reflect the positive side of black youths.

3

'The media are loving it' - this advert exemplifies the media's treatment of black youths, because the dominant representation of youths as violent thugs is the only form of representation of black youths; which ignore the subordinate representation of black youths. This particular advert, consisting of young blak artists, will help us as a group because within this advert black youths look up to these MC's and idolise them. Therefore, this advert could help us as to whether we will showcase young inspirational black youths or just normal everyday youths.

Coursework draft 1

“I very rarely see white teens acting up”[1]

Black youths are a target of a negative and misguided representation within British mainstream media.' To what extent is this statement true?

Linked production- 'Two 1 minute cinema adverts that raises awareness of the dangers of misrepresentation that reflectsa different approach by showing this group in a new more positive light.'

Black youths in today’s society are portrayed as thugs, out of control people who cause mayhem to society. However, taking into account the media’s immense influence on today’s society- is this representation true? Since ethnic minorities ‘in London is over 30%’ - and ‘8% of the UK population’[2][1] this perhaps could be a reason why ethnic minorities within the UK are represented as subordinates within the media. Britain as a democracy, and a multi-cultural society, you’d think the media would represent a more diverse Britain and celebrate the culture? Anchorage, controversial headlines, moral panics are some of many techniques used by the media to unfairly present all black youths as violent thugs. Similarly, Milligan (2005) argues ‘young black people grow up in a society where media images of black people are often negative and that it is therefore no surprise that many black children internalise such negative views about black people’. Could this negative representation be a way in which the media can punish black youths as an ethnic minority for the change in society? Or reinforce hegemonic values? Theoretically, speaking- Louis Althusser argued the media was like an ‘ideological state apparatus’-where the ruling class pass down their values onto society and use their social status/position to manipulate audiences, making their views right. The extent to which the British media actually reflect social issues within society is debateable.

Firstly, a debate that particularly looks on how effective the representations of the media is whether this representation truly reflects the ‘zeitgeist’[3][2]. In terms of print media- institutions such as ‘The Sun’ ‘Daily Mirror’ use ‘moral panics’- which is an expressed feeling within society that threatens the social order within society. Cohen argues a moral panic occurs when ‘a condition, episode, person or group of persons emerges to become defined as a threat to societal values and interests’[4]. This is particularly expressed by broadsheet newspapers who are politically biased, such a ‘The Sun’ who politically in favour of the conservatives- who are a right wing political party which follows traditional values. The use of moral panics used to describe the social concern of knife crime does reflect the media’s attempt to marginalize black youths in society. However, the negative representation of the media does reflect the social concerns within the media as ‘Black people make up only 5% of the United Kingdom’s population. However, over 50% of the prison population is black and 40% of the Black population is unemployed’. This is when the use of moral panics does reflect the ‘zeitgeist’. However, the irony is that the media continuously focus on the negative issues within society and ignore the positive to create a fair representation of black youths, the media clearly do not take the ‘we are all alike approach’. However, the struggle of the subordinate representation against the dominate representation is becoming increasingly difficult as ‘Every year 1000 Black pupils are permanently excluded and nearly 30,000 receive a fixed period exclusion. Black pupils are three times more likely to be excluded than their White peers; after all other background factors are taking into account.’[5]With this concern the negative representations and moral panics are – unfortunately- serving a purpose.

On the other hand, Britain as a democracy- is able to print as they like as institutions, which unfairly represent black youths- are not obligated to fairly to meet the needs of different types of audiences as they are not PSB’s who are not funded by the government through taxes. Similarly, as Connor argues ‘Representation is [...]how we engage in media texts, representation is [...] just as much as audience interpretation as it is about the portrayals’ representations of black youths are merely an interpretation in which, through the cultivation theory audiences believe the negative representation. Particularly from a freedom of speech perspective, it is better to ensure that the media are able to distribute content even if harm is done; it is better to ensure that Britain can identify itself as a democracy and practice democratic laws.

Furthermore, as media texts are influential in constructing out understanding of the world then it is important to weigh up the power the institutions have and how much of what is printed and distributed is value free or value laden. Value free, is when a particular investigation is carried out and the outcome is not influenced by the investigator’s ideologies or views, and value laden is when the outcome is influenced by the investigators ideologies and views. Therefore, institutions such as ‘The Sun’, ‘Daily Express’ print texts which are influenced by their political biasness. Furthermore, ‘The Sun’s’ influence is marked by being ‘the highest circulation of any daily English-language newspaper in the world and the biggest circulation within the UK, standing at an average of 2,862,935 copies a day in December 2009’[6]. Therefore, this truly demonstrates just how much power the media have as these sales justifies how much people buy into the representation of society. For example, an article titled ’20 Minute gang fight... and no one calls cops’. What is interesting about this article is that the content is not written content, but a typical convention of ‘The Sun’ which focuses on the images and croppings to anchor the image which is mainly reffered to as ‘Image interface’[7] as ‘Ten black and Asian youths battled for 20 minutes’[8]. This article further reinforces the binary oppositions between the media and black youths- where the media are the ‘goodies’ and the youths are the ‘baddies’, as institutions ‘They represent and construct features of a physical at the expense of others’[9]. However, it can be argued that this value laden approach does in fact reflect the age in which they are created.

On the other hand, the effectiveness of the media’s portrayal can be argued from a market-liberalism perspective. Market liberalists argue that audience’s preference decide what media texts are produced. This perspective suggests that the power and influence of media texts rests with the audience and not the institution. As ‘Stuart Hall shows how real meanings are never fixed but always contested’[10]Therefore, the extent to which media texts portray black youths negatively are only effective unless the audience accepts and consumes the text produced, because if audiences consume texts then this generates profit for the institution which influence the institution to further distribute content. However, as money is a integral reason why institutions distribute content, however the media are sensitive to audiences reactions as- Princess’ Diana’s death shocked Britain the media did not show pictures of Diana -who was badly injured- as this may have offended people.

Historically this is linked in with the entire race as a whole: on a larger scale black people have been facing an upheaval struggle for equal rights, perhaps this struggle influences the media's easy ability to write negative stories about black teenagers. As 'Tesa Perkins suggests that stereotypes can often express something about real social relations’[11]. With events within history such as the Civil Rights Movement has a major impact on how black youths and particularly black people are portrayed within local and global news. Individually and as a group this will play a huge role into completely disproving all the stereotypes that have been created and use the Civil Rights Movement in a positive way to show the together and powerful community that black people have within the 21st century. The ideologies of my production as a whole would be to 'not judge a book by its front cover' and not to become passive audience as the unfair representation within the media is not serving a purpose for the sake of reporting news it is in fact a way in which exaggerated stories are a fast way to make money and gain power within the media as the media plays a highly influential role within society today. Furthermore, the different use of camera angels such as a high shot to show black teenagers within our advert are a crucial and effective way that black teenagers are independent and dominant figures; rather that low angle shots to make them seem inferior by the media, as the use of 'Iconography for audiences to follow the narrative, so characters where stereotyped'[12]. The mise- en –scene is particularly crucial to us as the entire picture within each frame continuously shows the audience that black teenagers are not thieves and violent intolerable human beings, and taking into account all aspects of media language (setting, props, camera angles, actors etc) these aspects will make our production more noticeable and unconventional and overall more powerful and interesting.

Furthermore, politics are perhaps the most interesting and significant sides for and to my critical investigation and linked production, as the overwhelming amounts of gun and knife crime statistics, it seems that politicians and their parties do not hesitate and take it upon themselves that this is the case. In addition, another focus on political influences of this particular stereotype is the lack of times that a politician has actually been seen within these estates and communities trying to solve and find a resolution to the growing problem: however this is not the case: one would assume that as supposedly unbiased and representative people, surely they are meant to be finding and helping find a resolution?

Theoretically speaking from a Marxist perspective, Louis Althusser argues that the media is like an ‘Ideological state apparatus’[13], in which the ruling class pass their ideologies and views through their social position within society. Marxism is a conflict theory founded by Karl Marx which argues that society is a capitalist system in which capitalism only benefits the ruling class and legitimises class inequalities. Therefore, applying this theory into context; black youths are negatively portrayed because this reflects the ideologies of the ruling class and not society. Therefore, looking into the debate about media ownership and control, ‘the editor of the newspaper may well have "freedom" but freedom within certain limits. They cannot risk printing anything that offends the sensibilities of the owner as if they do this they risk unemployment.’[14], therefore, black youths are in fact portrayed negatively and this representation is misguided because the content distributed has many ideologies behind it and this representation does misguide people because a criticism could be that the media’s portrayal of black youths is too deterministic and only represents the ruling class’ ideologies and not the ideologies of society. Finally, the irony by the media is clear as the media also fail to be unbiased, because they ignore positive achievements of black youths.

To conclude, the debate about whether the media’s portrayal of black youths truly reflects the zeitgeist is what will provide the answers. ‘Black youths are a target of a negative and misguided representation within British mainstream media’- the misguided representations of black youths to a small extent does reflect the zeitgeist, however, to a large extent black youths are targeted negatively. On the other hand, this representation can only be fulfilled if the audience buy into what the media is distributing, therefore theories such as the 'The 'hypodermic model' assumed media effects were simple and direct a casual connection existing between what people see, hear and read in the media and their knowledge’s, attitudes and behaviour'.[15] Therefore, this misguided representation by the media is continuing because audience’s are believing in this representation by the media.

Word Count: 1,980

References

Books –

- Cohen, Stanley. Folk Devils and Moral Panics: Thirtieth Anniversary Edition. 2 ed. New York: Routledge, 2003. Print.

- Manovich, Lev. The Language of New Media (Leonardo Books). null. Reprint. London: The Mit Press, 2002. Print.

- Laughey, Dan. The Media Studies Guide. Harpenden: Kamera Books, 2009. Print

- Casey, Bernadette (2002)Television Studies Key concepts. London Routledge

- Hayward, Susan (2000): Cinema Studies Key concepts. London, Routledge

- Bignell, J. (2007). An Introduction to Television Studies (2 ed.). New York: Routledge.

- Calvert/Casey/C. (2007). Television Studies: The Key Concepts (Routledge Key Guides) (2 ed.). New York: Routledge.

- Calvert/Casey/C. (2007). Television Studies: The Key Concepts (Routledge Key Guides) (2 ed.). New York: Routledge.

- Hayward, S. (2006). Cinema Studies: The Key Concepts (Routledge Key Guides) (3 ed.). New York: Routledge.

- Hayward, S. (2006). Cinema Studies: The Key Concepts (Routledge Key Guides) (3 ed.). New York: Routledge.

- Malik, S. (2001). Representing Black Britain: Black and Asian Images on Television (Culture, Representation and Identity series) (1st ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications Ltd.

- Wignall, P. (2001). Prejudice and Difference (What's at Issue?). Chicago: Heinemann Library.

- Williams, K. (2003). Understanding Media Theory (Hodder Arnold Publication). London: A Hodder Arnold Publication.

Websites-

- http://www.city-data.com/forum/politics-other-controversies/304357-inner-city-black-youth-14.html

- http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/1648516/Black-and-Asian-youths-of-rival-gangs-carrying-weapons-fight-on-streets-of-Shoreditch-East-London-Gang-violence.html

- http://www.standards.dfes.gov.uk/ethnicminorities/resources/PriorityReviewSept06.pdf

- http://www.smirnov.demon.co.uk/socialism/overview/media.htm

---

[1] http://www.city-data.com/forum/politics-other-controversies/304357-inner-city-black-youth-14.html

[2] http://news.bbc.co.uk/newswatch/ukfs/hi/newsid_6360000/newsid_6368100/6368173.stm

[3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zeitgeist

[4] Cohen, Stanley. Folk Devils and Moral Panics: Thirtieth Anniversary Edition. 2 ed. New York: Routledge, 2003. Print.

[5] http://www.standards.dfes.gov.uk/ethnicminorities/resources/PriorityReviewSept06.pdf

[6] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sun_(newspaper)

[7] Ibid

[8] http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/1648516/Black-and-Asian-youths-of-rival-gangs-carrying-weapons-fight-on-streets-of-Shoreditch-East-London-Gang-violence.html

[9] Manovich, Lev. The Language of New Media (Leonardo Books). null. Reprint. London: The Mit Press, 2002. Print.

[10] Laughey, Dan. The Media Studies Guide. Harpenden: Kamera Books, 2009. Print

[11] Casey, Bernadette (2002)Television Studies Key concepts. London Routledge

[12] Hayward, Susan (2000): Cinema Studies Key concepts. London, Routledge

[13] http://changingminds.org/explanations/critical_theory/concepts/isa.htm

[14] http://www.smirnov.demon.co.uk/socialism/overview/media.htm

[15] Williams, K. (2003). Understanding Media Theory (Hodder Arnold Publication). London: A Hodder Arnold Publication.